Where I do sticks, we take guys who are there for the first time and pad them up, put a stick in their hand, and yell go.

As for a Gathering ... IMHO you need some stick training. By my second Gathering, I had sparred 2 to 3 times a week for about 8 months. It made a huge difference in my mental state over my first Gathering.

If you want to fight in a Gathering, you should watch one and then go home and train with those images in your mind.

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I don't know how many of them it would have taken to whip my ass, but I knew how many they were going to use. That's a handy little piece of information.- Ron White

fatwrath, It is interesting to see how people with no training by instinct do certian techniques such as the cave man or the all to famous backhand stance. They also tend not to have what Crafty calls Polio hand (correct me if I am wrong about the name Marc) and they end up having very active check hand.

A couple of times a month, I play with a group of guys that have no stick training but have some emptyhand and very little full speed sparring. I also "sparred" a bunch of kids with Actionflex.

Most people don't need to much training on how or where to hit. There are only so many ways to swing a stick at someone. I agree that people gravitate to a caveman and go to a back stance. I don't see newbies checking naturally. What I find is they use their off hand as a shield to take the hit. I also find they bring the strikes in from one side (they only swing 1's and 3's).

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I don't know how many of them it would have taken to whip my ass, but I knew how many they were going to use. That's a handy little piece of information.- Ron White

Speaking of, what is the numbering system that you use? Infact, what are the number systems for any of the groups for that matter, Crafty? I know from the first set of videos instead of settins numbers to the strikes DBMA would rather call them forward hards, back hands and slashes and jabs. My Sifu set an extremly specific numbering pattern that I think is very effective but I would love to observe some others.

I practice Doce Pares. They have a 12 count pattern of basic swinging and stabbing strikes. However, I don't understand why these 12. There are more than 12 ways of striking that are not in the pattern but are taught and some of them are even useful.

With the right hand:1 and 2 make the X pattern from right to left and left to right.

3 and 4 are horizonal strikes from right to left and left to right to the head or body.

These are 90% of the strikes no matter how they are numbered.

Strikes 5, 6, 9, and 10 are low and high stabs (which are useless holdovers from when everyone carried a machete), strikes 7 and 8 are to the knees (which are handy, but are just a low 3 and 4), and strikes 11 and 12 are vertical strikes to the head (which are just a slight variation of 1 and 2).

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I don't know how many of them it would have taken to whip my ass, but I knew how many they were going to use. That's a handy little piece of information.- Ron White

1) In my understanding numbering systems are not the same thing as striking patterns/combinations, although some combinations are usually found in numbering systems. The numbers are but a way of naming strikes.

There are some differences in numbering systems. Systems around lighter weapons tend to have a 2 on the diagonal, whereas in systems around bigger weapons it is more common to see the 2 come back on the mid-horizontal. PT has 1 and 2 as horizontals to the head. In my experience, many systems install the horizontal strikes only on the mid-lines and typically practitioners so trained often lack the horizontal on the head line.

In DBMA we prefer to simply name strikes with combinations of these words: Forehand, Backhand, Redondo, Slash, jab, vertical, diagonal, horizontal, uppercut, thrust, and punyo, reverse, etc. (Kabaroan Eskrima has an analogous manner of naming its strikes that is more evolved.) Thus for example, a backhand vertical jab, a forehand slash uppercut, a reverse forehand redondo, etc. Occasionally strikes have their own name e.g. the Caveman, the Dodger, the Bolo, etc.

Combinations are addressed directly as such.

2)Concerning when to start sparring/fighting: It depends not only on the individual, but also on the level, attitude and composure of whom he is fighting.

The advantage to starting relatively soon is that it tends to innoculate one against martial arts fantasies and promotes getting the essence from training.

The potential disadvantages are:

a) that it plays to the vanity of the player i.e. thinking himself a badass, he becomes too opinionated about training methods and techniques and may lessen his willingness to engage in mid and long term skill development, and

b) he may get dinged and put his tail between his legs because the experience overwhelmed him.